


Thirty-Seven Freckles

by platypi_in_ties



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Pining, just another day of pining after your best friend by the pool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 03:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14440554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platypi_in_ties/pseuds/platypi_in_ties
Summary: The sun is hot, the pool is cold, and Combeferre is in love with his best friend.





	Thirty-Seven Freckles

Courfeyrac has thirty seven freckles and one birthmark on his left shoulder. Combeferre knows, because he’s counted them. Has been counting them, over and over again, for the last twenty minutes. The birthmark looks like a goldfish. The cracker kind that Courfeyrac likes to toss up and catch in his mouth. Combeferre doesn’t tell him this. Courfeyrac is sure it looks like a submarine.

Courfeyrac shifts beside him. Combeferre wonders if Courfeyrac’s skin would feel as gold to the touch as it looks, warmed by the sun as they lay beside the pool. Inches. That’s all it would take to close the gap between him and find out for himself. It may as well be miles. Combeferre does not move.

The sun is hot, the pool is cold, and Combeferre is in love with his best friend. He turns to look up at the clouds. Cirrus today. They’re hard to see without his glasses. He decides that one’s a jellyfish.

Courfeyrac has a scar down the middle of his chest. Open heart surgery two years ago. Combeferre remembers it like yesterday. He had memorized the words, sounding out the letters of the medical report as he sat beside his friend’s hospital bed. _Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Septal myectomy. Prognosis good._ The doctor had been patient in answering his questions. Courfeyrac’s heart muscles had thickened so much that it was making it hard for his blood to flow, the doctor had said. Courfeyrac’s heart was simply too big. But Combeferre hadn’t needed a doctor to tell him that.

The movement of Courfeyac’s chest catches Combeferre’s attention out of the corner of his eye. Up. Down. In. Out. Combeferre lets his eyes skim over Courfeyrac’s chest, trailing the length of his scar. Maybe Combeferre will become a doctor too. A pediatric cardiologist. Maybe someday he’ll be able to save another boy’s best friend.

Combeferre is sixteen, his lips are sticky with strawberries, and he wants to kiss a boy. Not just any boy, though. He wants to know if Courfeyrac’s lips are as sticky as his own. If they would taste as sweet as his strawberries. He watches Courfeyrac’s tongue dart out to moisten his lips and wonders again if Courfeyrac can read minds. He wonders what Courfeyrac would say, if he could. He wonders what he would do.

On days like this Combeferre cannot stop his mind from wandering. They are alone on the ground near Courfeyrac’s pool, towels old and scratchy beneath them, the sun warm on their skin. They are home alone, at least while Courfeyrac’s mother picks his sisters up from dance class. No one would see. He imagines crossing that distance, his fingertips trailing over Courfeyrac’s warm, bronze chest. Firm muscles, soft skin. Imagines rolling onto his side, leaning in, tasting the strawberries on Courfeyrac’s lips. On his tongue.

Combeferre closes his eyes. He does not move.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not 100% pleased with this, but I wanted to get it up there and out into the world. The finished version would be edited and much longer but it is what it is


End file.
